


The Truth of It

by alisvolatpropiis



Series: The Truth of It [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Derek Leaves, Ficlet, Friends With Benefits, Love Confessions, M/M, One Shot, Pining Derek, Stiles Leaves Beacon Hills, Versatile Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, vague mentions of alcohol and weed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:02:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3239018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alisvolatpropiis/pseuds/alisvolatpropiis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek took the picture late one night the summer between Stiles’ junior and senior years of college, the last of their four summers together.</p><p>Or not-together. The last of their four summers of whatever it was they were to each other in those years, fucking nonstop and spending nearly every waking moment together for three months at a time, both of them aggressively maintaining the it’s-just-sex-it-doesn’t-mean-anything rule they set their very first time together, the night of the pack’s high school graduation party when, slightly drunk, Stiles kissed him for the first time, determined and eager, heart pounding in Derek’s ears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth of It

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tumblr ficlet that's not as developed as I usually like my fics to be when I post them to Ao3, but I like it enough to post it here. Inspired by a photo on [softersterek](http://softersterek.tumblr.com/post/108387930216) (included below in the fic). Lot's of pining Derek with a happy ending, of course.
> 
> Thank you for your kind kudos and comments!! xoxo

Derek took the picture late one night the summer between Stiles’ junior and senior years of college, the last of their summers together.

Or not-together. The last of their summers of whatever it was they were to each other in those years, fucking nonstop and spending nearly every waking moment together for three months at a time, both of them aggressively maintaining the it’s-just-sex-it-doesn’t-mean-anything rule they set their very first time together, the night of the pack’s high school graduation party when, slightly drunk, Stiles kissed him for the first time, determined and eager, heart pounding in Derek’s ears.

The night he took the photo, they were stoned and sex-dumb, Stiles rolling in the blankets on Derek’s bed while he played with his mother’s old-fashioned film camera, loaded with black and white film. Derek doesn’t remember what they were laughing about, but he does remember, with aching clarity, Stiles’ carefree, raucous laughter, his beautiful mouth brilliant and wide, eyes squeezed shut; he remembers the way his scent blossomed with warm contentment; he remembers how he knew, snapping the photo and hearing each click and whir of the camera’s tired mechanisms, that he had captured Stiles ( _his Stiles_ ) as he loved him best.

Derek refused to be an interference in Stiles’ life in college – he deserved as much of a normal life as he could get, after everything; and besides, anyone getting too close to Derek is just asking for pain and sorrow, and he cared too deeply for Stiles to let himself love him – and so at the end of each summer Stiles would gather his things, the detritus of their not-relationship, and head back to Seattle. Derek would return to pretending to be okay with the emptiness of his house, would shrug it off when Stiles’ texts and phone calls always became less frequent, usually stopping altogether by Christmas.

And when Stiles graduated from college and decided to go straight into graduate school in Iowa, choosing to also spend the summer before traveling through South America, Derek knew that Stiles was done with Beacon Hills for good.

Done with Derek for good.

And that’s when Derek realizes that he, too, has nothing left in Beacon Hills. He boards up his house, packs what few belongings he cares about, and drives away, waiting until he’s well out of town before he texts Scott to let him know, and then he turns off his phone for a very, very long time.

**~*~**

He keeps the photo of Stiles tucked into the inner pocket of his leather jacket during the drive to Portland, keeps it there the weeks he lives in a hotel until he finds a furnished apartment in Northwest, the photo’s edges starting to curl from his constant handling of it, his hands drifting over the slick paper in a phantom mockery of how he used to touch him.

Derek reconnects with some old friends that he and Laura knew from when they lived here after the fire, picks up some consistent freelance editing and writing work, and he builds a quiet life for himself, retreating often to the surrounding wilderness to shift and run when he feels the urge.

He occasionally hears from Scott, and sometimes from Lydia.

He never hears from Stiles.

He goes on dates occasionally, with men and women, and it’s not terrible but he’s not excited about anyone he meets, and he tries to tell himself it’s not because he’s still hopelessly in love with the boy who only ever wanted him for sex, the infuriatingly beautiful, stubborn, gentle-souled boy who deserves so much more than Derek’s fragile heart.

He has sex with some of the people he dates, is sure to be clear that it’s just casual, that it doesn’t mean anything. It’s strange, actually meaning it when he says it, so accustomed he had become to trying not to inflect the words with the half-truths and evasion he felt when he said them to Stiles all those times. He wonders if that’s how Stiles always felt, the simplicity in believing in the truth of it.

Although, when he lets himself dwell on it, Derek can’t help but think about how it always felt more than casual when Stiles touched him, even their first kiss and their first few times together, when they were both nervous and hurried, urgent like each time was the first and last; it felt like more than just sex when Stiles held Derek’s face and kissed him deeply and slowly as he topped him for the first time; and it didn’t seem casual at all when they spent a week at the beach the summer after Stiles’ sophomore year, when they held hands and walked along the boardwalk and gave each other loving, languid blowjobs in the sand as the tide crashed around their bare legs. It felt like more than just sex when Stiles would let Derek cradle him to his chest for hours after their lovemaking, trying to keep inside of him, close to him, as long as he could. And it didn’t feel at all casual – felt like the world was shattering and twisting and cracking around him, in fact – the last time they saw each other, when Stiles kissed him goodbye before heading off for his last year of college, lips tender and eyes gentle, shimmering.

**~*~**

Derek keeps the photo on his refrigerator, the only thing on the shining stainless steel, up just above his eyelevel. He gets in the habit of only looking at it askance, keeping the image and too-strong memories it evokes hovering just on the edge of his awareness, close enough to be comforting, to give him the aura and taste of Stiles that he seems to need just to breathe, but distant enough that it doesn’t consume him with longing and regret.

Until one day, after he’s been in Portland for a couple years, Tasha and Brad, a werewolf couple he’s friends with, are over for dinner and Tasha plucks the photo from under its small magnet, smiling, curious. “Who’s this cutie?” she asks, and Derek looks at the photo, really looks at it for the first time in a while, and he’s overcome with waves of loss and need and sadness, mixing brightly and confusedly with the happy memories of that night: he can taste the pot and Stiles’ come on his tongue, can smell his earthy-sweet scent, can feel the supple, wiry length of his lean torso, can see his creamy skin, so easily reddened by Derek’s rough stubble, can hear his lovely laughter and the delicious groan of delight Stiles made when Derek leaned forward to kiss him after he snapped the picture.

He tucks the photo away after that, deep in a dresser drawer, and tries once again to forget.

**~*~**

Eventually, five years since he took the photo, Derek removes it from the drawer and places it in a simple black frame and sets it on his nightstand. He’s not sure why or what changed, but it just feels right to have it close again, the pain the memories it brings up dulled enough by time that he can let himself remember, let himself study Stiles’ glowing smile and the graceful curves and lines of his body without aching to touch him (as much, at least).

It makes things a little awkward with his dates the few times he brings someone home in the months afterwards, but Derek doesn’t really care. He stops trying to date or hook up soon after that anyways, exhausted by the emptiness and his inability to give someone what they want because he gave himself so completely to Stiles years ago without even realizing it, perhaps that very first time he asked him to save his life, wolfsbane weakening his every breath.

He stares at his beautiful laugh every night and every morning.

He tries not to wonder if Stiles ever thinks about him.

**~*~**

And then one day, almost a year later, Derek is browsing in Powell’s and he’s struck by a scent so familiar and heady the rush of longing and excitement shakes him to his bones. He turns a corner and there he is, hair tousled and eyes bright behind square-rimmed black glasses and carrying an armload of books. He looks different, of course, in so many ways, but Derek’s instincts, his body, his wolf, knows him, and in the long moments that they stare at each other in wide-eyed surprise, each too scared to move, it seems, Derek sees the man standing before him but also the boy from the photo, and his heart aches at his beauty, again, always.

Somehow, Derek manages to speak, even though his heart is rabbiting out of his chest as he watches Stiles look him over, tries not to get too encouraged by the flowering of familiar arousal he scents on him, manages to keep his voice steady to say yes when Stiles ask him if he wants to go get a drink and catch up, isn’t exactly sure what possesses him to suggest that they go back to Derek’s place instead.

It’s exhilarating and terrifying, having Stiles in his apartment; they’re both awkward and anxious like they’ve never been alone together before, trying to navigate the expanse of silent years between them – longer than the few years that their lives were intertwined, almost inextricably, and far longer than the handful of scattered months that they were something _else,_ something _more_ to each other.

Derek quickly reconciles this older Stiles with the boy of his memories and his dreams, notes the broader spread of his shoulders and the tighter pull of the skin around his face, the final plump curves of youth all gone, the lovely architectural planes of his bone structure fully revealed. His mouth is still pouty and pink and there are gray tattoos peeking out from his short-sleeved v-neck that Derek hungers to see, to taste. Derek wonders what differences Stiles is noticing about him, if he recognizes in this older version of him the werewolf whose bed he used to share, joyfully.

Stiles rambles nervously, awkward small talk, catching-up-like-old-buddies talk, telling him about grad school and traveling abroad and his job as a librarian ( _had Stiles known that Derek had moved back to Portland when he took a job here?_ Derek doesn’t dare ask).

They sip at the beer Derek offers, standing awkwardly in the kitchen, and when Stiles asks where the bathroom is Derek is relieved for a break from the tension, for a moment alone to compose himself and gather his thoughts. He tells Stiles that it’s through the bedroom, and he doesn’t realize until it’s too late that the framed photo is still sitting there in plain sight, the only thing on his nightstand other than a lamp.

After a long time – too long – he finally risks venturing into his bedroom, not at all surprised to find Stiles sitting on the edge of his unmade bed, the framed photo held delicately in his hands – _have his fingers always been so tantalizingly long?_ Stiles’ scent is thick with something Derek doesn’t recognize, and that stings, the reminder that there are probably many things about Stiles that are unfamiliar to him now. Heart pounding, deafening to his ears, so loud he’s sure Stiles can hear it, Derek studies the look of awe and confusion and maybe sadness on Stiles’ expressive face while he stares down at the photo of himself, at the totem of Derek’s unrequited love, its weathered edges and smudges visible even through the glass.

Derek watches him, stunned, years of unsaid confessions and declarations whispered only in his heart cradled right there in those hands, hands that used make him tremble and shake and smile, hands that treated his body with care and wonder even as they gripped him hard in fevered, insatiable lust. Hands that once, long ago, well before they started having sex, made him feel alive and cared for, _worth_ caring for, when he had been sure so every part of him that had been good had died along with his family.

“Stiles,” he manages to choke out, feeling raw and exposed. “I can explain…”

He can’t finish, because Stiles is pressed up against him, kissing him messily and urgently, arms – much more muscled now than Derek remembers – wrapping clumsily around his neck, the photo still clutched between his long fingers. Derek grunts in happy surprise and lets himself drown in the kiss, in the overwhelming, maddeningly hot press of Stiles’ mouth on his once again, every dream, waking and asleep, that he’s had in the past six years coming true in this moment.

“Me too,” Stiles sighs against his mouth, letting their foreheads fall together, a gesture so intimate and once-common it feels almost as if no time at all has passed. “I love you, too, always have,” Stiles whispers, both of them smiling at the truth of it.  

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [deleted-scenes](http://deleted-scenes.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr!


End file.
